ForumforAstral
Hello to all the souls reading this forum. I'm glad to have found this place because I'm really feeling the need to connect with people that practice astral projection. I've never managed to fully consciously astral project, but as I got older and learned new amazing things, I really have the urge to be able to fully and consciously astral project. I hope you will forgive me for my not-so-good English, but I ask you to read my story, share your thoughts and maybe give a little piece of advice.
To my best of knowledge it appears I have a natural ability to astral project. I'v never succeeded to do it fully and consciously before, but then I've never even tried until recently. I've been having these "episodes" of strange sleep related phenomena since I was a little kid, maybe 5-6 years old. At the time I had no idea what they were. I remember having strange sensations prior to falling asleep, like sensing the space around me somehow expanding, feeling unpleasant "cottony" sensation in my fingers and hands, and hearing voices repeating in echoes and speaking slowly, like a broken cassette player (hope the new generations reading this know what a cassette player is ;D ). Naturally, I was scared and tried to explain to my mother what I've been experiencing, but she had no clue what to tell me, so I just never told her again when having these kind of experiences cause I didn't want her to freak out about it.
Later in my early teenage years i stopped feeling these things like voice hallucinations and "cottony" feelings, but I started to have what I now know is called sleep paralysis. This was even more scary for me, it was hard to explain what I'm feeling to anybody and I was scared of possession because of Catholic upbringing. Lucky for me, I've become smarter than that rather early, in my late teens. I realized that most of the stuff Catholics teach make very little sense, so I began my own spiritual journey, starting with almost atheist views, but later acknowledging the one consciousness that connects us all as the intelligent creator force in this universe. Still, when I was having the sleep paralysis episode, which were quite often, I couldn't let go of the fear. Countless times have I felt spinning around or floating above my body, sometimes even in another part of the room, but almost always there was a "scary presence" which I now believe it is just my fear itself. I've never heard the "thunder" sounds people often describe, though.
I'm 30 now and last year I've experienced a major consciousness shift, mostly about what people call "2012 spiritual awakening". I wasn't going for it deliberately, not was I the part of te whole 2012 hype - it just happened to me randomly and my life changed dramatically since. I began to see the world as it truly is, became aware of the type of slavery in which our society is being held by the economic, religious and other systems, and since then I'm trying with my every action to help the world become a better place. I also changed my diet to vegan, mostly frutarian (which was not completely new, I've been vegetarian most years of my life) simply because I cannot support ANY form of cruelty, nor exploitation of sentient beings. I've been looking into astral projection lately when I realized how it is linked to my sleep paralysis episodes. I realized that I had these episodes coming to me naturally all along, but actually all these years I consciously tried hard to suppress it simply because of the fear, so I decided i will work harder on getting through this barrier and try to eliminate this unnecessary fear.
Through my teenage years and early twenties I was deadly afraid of my sleep paralysis episodes, and I guess it was mostly because of the sensation of a presence. Most often I had a sensation of somebody or something grabbing my legs and pulling me from the bed, actually it was like being slightly out of body. I also many times had these vibrational feelings, more like somebody was spinning me by the legs all around the room. Few times i even felt myself floating against the ceiling in another part of my room. All these things scared me to death, and I was desperately trying to wake up, but 99% of the time I couldn't do it, so I had to focus really hard to move any part of my body to end it. At the time I've never read anything about sleep paralysis, I just figured out that this is the only thing that works for me to wake up. That's so funny now, I didn't even know what I was afraid of! This presence is probably just my own fear. In my mid twenty's I met my soul-mate and we started to live together very soon. First time she heard me having the sleep paralysis she was also scared because she thought I was suffocating in my sleep. Apparently my breathing always becomes very rapid and intermittent. Actually I often hear myself breathing like that during the episodes. So she became my life savior because she would always wake me up as soon as I started having sleep paralysis, so I wouldn't have to endure it no longer. I was so grateful for that then! Actually my episodes became much less frequent because of it, and I was happy about it until now :o
...so I've been trying to get back to having more of SP episodes lately by using some of the relaxing techniques, which still never worked for getting SP so far. It only comes naturally to me, most often when I'm very tired, but much less frequent than before. Now, when I'm having the episode I try to think positive thoughts and eliminate the fear, but usually I still fell the fear and wake up eventually, before I ever manage to calm myself and let go to exit my body. I specifically instructed my significant other not to wake me up when she hears I breathe with difficulty. :D
Actually, the whole reason that I'm writing this right now is because yesterday I came as much close to consciously astral project as ever before. I was very tired because we came home from a long trip. I was pretty much conscious when I felt the familiar sensation of being slightly out of body and this time, even though I felt the fear, I managed to slip out completely! I didn't even have to try any of the techniques like the Rope or rolling out, I just slipped out like a helium balloon ;D Even then I had my doubts it was actually happening. I could barely see anything, but I knew I was in my room, and I kinda saw the light coming through the window. But I was not able to control my movement. I remember touching the wall as if I wanted to convince myself that it's really happening, and indeed i felt the texture of the wall on my fingertips. Then i just continued the uncontrolled floating towards the ceiling and kinda had no idea what to do ;D ..my breathing was again rapid and intermittent and my significant other woke me up this time, she thought I was having a nightmare.
So the problem is...how do I control my movement? Why was I just slipping and floating, not being able to go somewhere, do something, or look down and see my body in bed, or my significant other sleeping? After waking up I still had my doubts, was it even real? I still felt quite tight and uncomfortable last night wile having the experience and I'm thinking it may have something to do wit a very uncommon position I sleep in. Is it because I sleep on my chest and my astral body is thus also turned face down? I simply cannot sleep face up so I hope this is not the only solution. I would like to learn how to control my astral body, and turn it around face up even when my physical body is face down. I would also like to be able to "prove" to myself that the experience is indeed real but I'm not sure how to do that.
Thank you for reading my (too) long story, I hope some of you will have a few words of guidance for this confused traveler :)
